MARCH! This month showed me more than ever how much I actually?miss Madrid when I am away from it. I have been traveling so much on the weekends that now my mentality is more of: “Lydia, no more trips! Stay in Madrid or you will spend the whole semester missing it!” After saying goodbye to my friend from the states who came to visit, I had some time in this amazing city just to love it on my own. I would definitely say that though traveling is amazing, March showed me that each day in this city is my real favorite.
Also, I was able to welcome my parents to Madrid this month! It was so fun to be able to do all of the extremely touristy Spanish/Madrid things. I loved being able to translate for them (it made me feel very proficient in my spanish), tour with them, and do the fancy things around the city that we students don’t quite have the funds to supply. They even took the Aggies all out to dinner at a shwanky place. 🙂 So fun/gig em!
We started in Madrid, hitting the Royal Palace (they LOVED this!), the Prado, Retiro, a BULL FIGHT (what?!) and finishing with a dinner at my house with my host family. It was so fun to see my host family running around and being SO kind to prepare a meal for my parents. I really felt like royalty. This is spanish hospitality, baby! Not quite Texan hospitality… just a little bit different but still just as sweet. The next day, my parents and I did a wine tour of Ribera del Duero in the north! I loved it!! Later that week, we toured Granada and Sevilla and all the Costa del Sol. What a dream! If anyone reading this ever is going to be studying in Madrid or Andalucia, make sure and take a day trip through a tiny cute little town called Frigiliana on a weekend! It was amazzinggg. It has white buildings and beautiful flowers and the kindest people! We bought the best stroop waffles I’ve ever had there… fresh from the oven! Go on a warm day that doesn’t have a lot of wind, though. This city took me absolutely by surprise, I had never even heard of it! My mom told us to make the turn and WOW, it was so cute. Imagine Cordoba in the mountains!
Even writing this now, I am so excited to talk to people who know Spain about this semester when I get home. Traveling all of this with my parents was amazing, but it definitely did not satisfy the desire in my heart to know Spain on an extremely deep level. I feel like I need to live here for a year or more now, just to get a better feel for this amazing country. Spain is different from the states, too in that I feel like if I lived here for a couple years with the desire to really know it, you could definitely put a dent in it! After a semester, I am feeling like I took a deep breath of a wonderful smell, but I don’t even know what it is yet. It is SPAIN! I want to know it better, but I am realizing now more than ever that I simply do not have the time. My parents told me that they envisioned me returning in some years to tour with maybe a future husband or my best friends after college. What a dream that sounds like!
If there is anything this month taught me, it’s that a semester is not enough and I AM COMING BACK!
Here is a picture of the bullfight that I did with my parents! Honestly I had no idea that they killed bulls before we bought the tickets but it ended up being great! Pretty gross to see the bull die but we got them for my dad’s birthday and it was EPIC! I felt like it was all these old spanish couples there watching.
This is a picture of my parents and I at the Alcazar in Sevilla! 🙂
This is my dad and I on the Costa del Sol, near Malaga and Frigiliana.?